HFICD Newsletter Spotlight

Save the Date: 11th NPIC-HMIT Conference

February 9-14, 2019

There is probably no more exciting time to be involved in digital I&C than the present. After more than three years of work by industry experts led by NEI, NRC has finally published RIS 2002-22 Supplement 1 that will allow licensees to perform digital upgrades to safety related support systems under the 10 CFR 50.59 process utilizing a “qualitative assessment”. So, goodbye to analog control room chiller controls, analog timing relays and analog breakers. Publishing this guidance is the first step in transforming the regulatory process so that modern digital controls can be applied throughout the plant without undue regulatory barriers. Next, the industry is working with the NRC to issue updated guidance on performing 10 CFR 50.59 reviews for digital systems and a streamlined process for preparing and submitting License Amendment Requests (LAR) for complex digital upgrades for plant safety systems. Join us at the 2019 NPIC-HMIT Topical Meeting to learn more about this and other developments.

Sincerely,

Jason Remer and Daniel Churchman

Thoughts from the Chair

– Ray Herb

Hello, HFICD Members,

I would like to introduce myself as your new HFICD Chair (2018-2019). My career started in the Navy where I graduated from the Naval Academy in 1983 and spent 7 years in the Nuclear Navy as an officer in Nuclear Submarines. Since then I’ve spent 27 years in Commercial nuclear power working in various plant sites in engineering duties related to I&C: I’ve been involved in B&W PWRs, Westinghouse 3 loop, 4 loop and Advanced Plant reactors and GE BWRs, with a touch of Cyber Security thrown in for good luck. In addition to ANS, I serve on IEEE, IEC standards bodies, serve on NEI Digital I&C task forces and even occasionally work with DOE and IAEA when they ask.

HFICD started last year 2017-2018 with a very successful 10th NPIC-HMIT embedded topical in the Annual Meeting in San Francisco and ended with awards given out for the Don Miller Award to Dr. Jin Jiang from Western University and Dr. Belle Upadhyaya from the University of Tennessee (page 6) and the Ted Quinn Early Career Award to Chad Kiger of AMS (page 7). The nuclear industry has seen some ups and downs this past year, with bad news coming as announcements of plant closures in California, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Ohio, and Pennsylvania and the decision to halt construction of VC Summer units 2 and 3. On a positive note TVA brought Watts Bar Unit 2 online, Vogtle 3 and 4 continue construction, and legislation in Illinois and New York may have potentially averted additional closures in those states while other states seem to be considering credits as well.

We will end the year (2018-2019) with the 11th NPIC-HMIT Topical meeting in Orlando, February 2019, and we are still accepting abstracts (see the end of this issue for a Call for Papers). These are times that beg for solutions and this is your opportunity to provide that needed spark. I look forward to seeing each of you at the Winter meeting in Orlando in November where the theme is “Joining Forces to Advance Nuclear” we will have a small preview of the NPIC-HMIT topical, and I hope that you all come to promote the use of advanced instrumentation and controls and human factors to help make nuclear more cost efficient, reliable and, as always, safer.